Beproduetion in the Mushroom Tribe. By W. O. Smith. 23 



fungus has at length produced its fruit, and is prostrate and dying 

 upon the matrix from which it sprang, then, as can be seen with 

 patience under the microscope, the cystidia produce spermatozoids 

 which are at first passive and then active ; these pierce the spores 

 and cause the discharge of the first hving cell of the pileus of a 

 new plant. It will be seen from these observations that C. radiatus, 

 though one of the most minute and fugitive of all the Mushroom 

 tribe, is yet as completely perfect in all its parts as any of the 

 larger and higher species of Agaricus. It must not be supposed 

 that these observations can be followed without close attention and 

 the utmost patience. All the 3,000,000 spores of the fungus do 

 not grow and make new plants, or the world would soon be covered 

 with C. radiatus. For every spore that is fertilized and grows, 

 there are millions which necessarily perish. 



On a dungheap which will produce C radiatus, other species, 

 as C. nycthemerus, &c., are sure to appear ; and not only do allied 

 species come up in company with C. radiatus, but every inter- 

 mediate form between one and the other may be gathered any 

 morning. These latter plants belong to no species described as 

 such, but are natural hybrids, doubtlessly produced by the sperma- 

 tozoids of one plant piercing the spores of another. Amongst the 

 larger species of Agaricus similar forms are quite common, and 

 they prove sore puzzles for those men who only want names for 

 the fungi they find. I am convinced that at least three-fourths of 

 the described species of the higher fungi have no claim to rank as 

 true species, and that plants like Agaricus procerus, A. rachodes, 

 A. excoriatus, A. gra^ilentus, with others, are mere forms of one 

 and the same plant, and every intermediate form may be met 

 with. 



Van Tieghem has recently been working on this species, and he 

 has arrived at the conclusion that the fungus produces spores of 

 different sexes. But to me it is quite unreasonable to imagine 

 seeds or spores to be of different sexes. Known facts point quite 

 in the opposite direction ; and if sex is once allowed in seeds and 

 spores, then we must be prepared to allow sex in pollen and sperma- 

 tozoids. A spore or ovule must be considered female, whilst unfe- 

 cundated or still in the ovary, but when once fertilized it combines 

 both sexes and cannot be other than hermaphrodite, A secondary 

 colour, as orange (which combines the red and yellow primaries), 

 can never be red or yellow. In dioecious plants the seeds are 

 capable of producing either sex, and are not themselves male or 

 female ; and even the great fleshy root- stock of Bryonia dioica will 

 be male in one place, and if removed to a different position be 

 female. The Eev. M. J. Berkeley, writing of Coprinus,* says : 

 "Late examinations of the spores of some Coprinus under germi- 

 * * Gardeners' Chronicle,' April 17, 1875, p. 503. 



